ian
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The Siren by Alison Bruce
All it took was one small item on the regional news for Kimberly Guyver and Rachel Golinski to know that their old life was catching up with them. They wondered how they'd been naive enough to htink it wouldn't. They hoped they still had a chance to leave it behind—just one more time—but within hours, Rachel's home is burning and Kimberly's young son, Riley, is missing.
DC Gary Goodhew begins to sift through their lives, and starts to uncover an unsettling picture of deceit, murder and accelerating danger. Kimberly seems distraught but also defensive and uncooperative. Is it fear and mistrust of the police that are putting her son at risk, or darker motivations?
With Riley's life in peril, Goodhew needs Kimberly to make choices, but she has to understand that the one thing she cannot afford is another mistake.My Thoughts
Not the best police procedural that I've read this year, but it's a new writer and only the second book, and while at times I did find it a little slow, there were enough touches to keep me interested. If the writing is tightened up a little, this could be a very good series of books. So, while I won't be deliberately searching out the other books quite yet, It will be on a list of "one's to watch". 3/5
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1. Any more Tom Clancy - I've had my fill with the 2 or 3 I've read already
2. Fifty shades - just...no
3. The Twilight saga - really not my thing
4. Any more Dan Brown - read the first four, that was enough.
5. Catch-22. I have tried, but the words just slid past the corners of my eyes and away. Couldn't get beyond the first chapter
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Well, I took "Secret Speech" back to the library today....and they had the third book (Agent 6) so I got that out. I shall be reading that next.
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The Secret Speech - Tom Rob Smith
The Soviet Union 1956: after Stalin's death, a violent regime is beginning to fracture. It leaves behind a society where the police are the criminals, and the criminals are innocent. Stalin's successor Khrushchev pledges reform. But there are forces at work that are unable to forgive or forget the past.
Leo Demidov, former MGB officer, is facing his own turmoil. The two young girls he and his wife Raisa adopted have yet to forgive him for his part in the brutal murder of their parents. They are not alone. Leo, Raisa and their family are in grave danger from someone with a grudge against Leo. Someone transformed beyond recognition into the perfect model of vengeance. Leo's desperate, personal mission to save his family will take him from the harsh Siberian Gulags, to the depths of the criminal underworld, to the centre of the Hungarian uprising—and into a hell where redemption is as brittle as glass.
My Thoughts
I had to take a couple of days before I wrote this, as I couldn't quite pin this book down. Firstly, I have to say that I did really enjoy the book. I liked the story and the way it weaves real life events (Khrushchev's speech, the 1956 Hungarian uprising) and a fictional plot. The plot is crisp without losing any detail. But once I'd finished it, something nagged at me - I didn't enjoy it as much as the first book. Eventually, I worked it out - in the first book, the two main characters, Leo & Raisa, go through a tremendous character arc (which I won't spoil here). Obviously, it would stretch the bounds of credibility to expect the same level of arc in this second book, but that's what I felt I was missing subconsciously. Once I realised that, the rest clicked into place for me. So, I have no reservations in recommending this book and I can't wait to read the final book of the trilogy. 4/5.
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Who gets a book and thinks "I'l just leave some hair in here"?
Seriously, the mind boggles, but maybe that's just me - I don't have enough hair to spare leaving it between the pages of a book!
I do like a charity shop for books. We have an Age Concern up our high st that has a separate book room. Problem is, I've now given so many books to it, that when In go in I recognise a lot of the books in there as mine. I need to get into the habit of giving the books to one shop, and buying from a different one.
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I suppose like a lot of people, if the theme is something you agree with, you're going to like the book, if it's something you vehemently disagree with, then you're not. Either way I prefer to have whatever theme gently and subtly introduced to me, rather than rammed down my throat, even if it is something I generally agree with.
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A Scanner Darkly - Philip K Dick.
Substance D is not known as Death for nothing. It is the most toxic drug ever to find its way on to the streets of LA. It destroys the links between the brain's two hemispheres, causing, first, disorientation and then complete and irreversible brain damage.
The undercover narcotics agent who calls himself Bob Arctor is desperate to discover the ultimate source of supply. But to find any kind of lead he has to pose as a user and, inevitably, without realising what is happening, Arctor is soon as addicted as the junkies he works among... (taken from Goodreads)My Thoughts
I think I've said before, this is a re-read for me, and not one I was particularly looking forward to - it was probably my least favourite of his books that I've read.
Well, I don't know if it's because I'm older, have more understanding of what the book is about, or I'm just more widely read now, but I did enjoy this. This is never going to be my favourite, but as a story, it has a strong anti-drugs message taken from personal experience. Of course, there is a sci-fi (ish) slant on it, but essentially, it is rooted deeply in sixties counter-culture. It also has a good slab of dark humour, that completely passed me by the first time I read this. I would have given this 2/5 then. 3/5 now.
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And then there were none by Agatha Cristie
First, there were ten - a curious assortment of strangers summoned as weekend guests to a private island off the coast of Devon. Their host, an eccentric millionaire unknown to all of them, is nowhere to be found. All that the guests have in common is a wicked past they're unwilling to reveal - and a secret that will seal their fate. For each has been marked for murder. One by one they fall prey. Before the weekend is out, there will be none. And only the dead are above suspicion. (taken from Goodreads)
My thoughts
I think to the best of my knowledge, I've only ever read one other Christie before this, and to be honest I couldn't tell you which one that was. The BBC did an adaptation of this last winter. I enjoyed that, so I decided to read the book. The slight problem with that is I already knew who did it.
Having said that, knowing the who meant I could relax and just enjoy the story, and try to see if anything gives thae game away. It doesn't! It's well written, and a complex plot certainly has all the questions answered and the loose ends tied up. Negatives - it's a very short book, so anything not essential to the plot is discarded; the conversations between the characters seem, at least to me, very old-fashioned (not surprising, given it was written in 1939) and very British "stiff-upper lip". 3/5
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I'm really keen to read this, and also watch the movie. Sounds like you really enjoyed it.
I've just logged on to Amazon and the Kindle version is only £0.99! Needless to say, I bought it.
Money well spent! (But then, every book is money well spent
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The Revenant by Michael Punke
A thrilling tale of betrayal and revenge set against the nineteenth-century American frontier, the astonishing story of real-life trapper and frontiersman Hugh Glass
The year is 1823, and the trappers of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company live a brutal frontier life. Hugh Glass is among the company’s finest men, an experienced frontiersman and an expert tracker. But when a scouting mission puts him face-to-face with a grizzly bear, he is viciously mauled and not expected to survive. Two company men are dispatched to stay behind and tend to Glass before he dies. When the men abandon him instead, Glass is driven to survive by one desire: revenge. With shocking grit and determination, Glass sets out, crawling at first, across hundreds of miles of uncharted American frontier. Based on a true story, The Revenant is a remarkable tale of obsession, the human will stretched to its limits, and the lengths that one man will go to for retribution. (taken from Goodreads)My Thoughts
My brother lent me this book. He'd just got the Blu-ray, and it came with a free copy of the book. Not having a Blu-ray player, I went with the book.
It's probably worth mentioning that I haven't seen the film.
It's an excellent book. I see that this appears to be the author's first "fiction" book, (this is a fictionisied account of a real event) the others being histories of the mid-west of the US in the frontier era. The danger was that this book could come across as very dry, and while it does have a very matter of fact narration; it certainly doesn't go down any road to sensationalism, it is a very compelling story, told in a very straightforward way.
What comes across here is the relentless cruelty of the environment and how what seems like a simple theft (the taking of a gun and knife) has such a pivotal affect on Hugh Glass's life. It's really good stuff, and I highly recommend this. 5/5
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The Sleeping Doll by Jeffery Deaver
When Special Agent Kathryn Dance -- a brilliant interrogator and kinesics expert with the California Bureau of Investigation -- is sent to question the convicted killer Daniel "Son of Manson" Pell as a suspect in a newly unearthed crime, she feels both trepidation and electrifying intrigue. Pell is serving a life sentence for the brutal murders of the wealthy Croyton family in Carmel years earlier -- a crime mirroring those perpetrated by Charles Manson in the 1960s. But Pell and his cult members were sloppy: Not only were they apprehended, they even left behind a survivor -- the youngest of the Croyton daughters, who, because she was in bed hidden by her toys that terrible night, was dubbed the Sleeping Doll.
But the girl never spoke about that night, nor did the crime's mastermind. Indeed, Pell has long been both reticent and unrepentant about the crime. And so with the murderer transported from the Capitola superprison to an interrogation room in the Monterey County Courthouse, Dance sees an opportunity to pry a confession from him for the recent murder -- and to learn more about the depraved mind of this career criminal who considers himself a master of control, a dark Svengali, forcing people to do what they otherwise would never conceive of doing. In an electrifying psychological jousting match, Dance calls up all her skills as an interrogator and kinesics -- body language -- expert to get to the truth behind Daniel Pell. (Taken from Goodreads)
My thoughts
Just a quick word of warning - there is another paragraph on Goodreads of the above. I've left it out as I feel it gives too much of the plot away.
I've not read any of this series before, but like other Deaver, the attention to detail and twists and turns of the plot make this an exciting book to read. The characters are interesting, but especially the antagonist, Pell, who is quite a complex creation - I did find myself having some sympathy with him at times. Great stuff. 5/5
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It's something that I often see on music forums; a musician dies (too many of those this year) or a band split and the forums come alive with "what if" scenarios.
Don't think I've ever seen a similar conversation about authors though.
So, given the chance to wave a magic wand or something, which author would you have liked to have seen more from?
I would have to go VERY obvious - Stieg Larsson. The fourth book put out by the family recently didn't really light my fire, and I would have loved to have seen further books by Stieg. It would have been good if the man himself could have seen the success that the books had.
The other obvious choice would be the Bronte sisters. All of them really, but especially Emily.
Probably less obvious these days would be Desmond Bagley. His books were some of the first adult fiction I ever read, and his books were enjoyable, fast-paced thrillers. I'd love to have more of those....
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1222 by Anne Holt
1222 is the story of how a small group of people find themselves stuck in a hotel during an apocalyptic snow storm. Following a dramatic train derailment at Finse, the conflict between the survivors escalates while a furious hurricane threatens the unprotected village. Nobody is there to help, and there is no way out of the inferno for the survivors hiding out. On the first night at the hotel, a man is found shot and murdered. The victim is Cato Hammer, a priest known nation-wide for his ability – and desire – to get in the papers. Hanne Wilhelmsen, retired Inspector at the Oslo Police, is drawn into a race against time, a murderer, and the worst storm in the Norwegian alps on record.
My Thoughts.
I picked up this book in a charity shop and was sold by the interesting premise on the back. The fact that the writer is an ex-Norwegian government minister added to that interest. Sadly, it didn't live up to its billing. The protagonist, Hanne Wilhemsen who is meant to be irritable and misanthropic, unfortunately comes across as boring. She (Hanne) is an ex-police detective, now in a wheelchair, a lesbian with a Muslim partner, so I was very disappointed to find the book riddled with gender, religious & national stereotypes. The other characters that she finds herself trapped in the hotel with feel one-dimensional and woefully under-utilised. This could have been a really good book - but the execution of the writing just wasn't there for me, and I struggled to get to the end. 2/5
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Finders Keepers by Stephen King
My thoughts
I think I'll like this book better the next time I read it. Unfortunately, my liking of the book was coloured by the fact that it wasn't the book I was expecting to read.
I should explain. This is the second book in the trilogy following a retired cop called Bill Hodges. In the first book, he (Hodges) is taunted by the perpetrator of a very nasty crime - the Mr Mercedes of the title. The associated characters in that book are great, and I couldn't wait to find out what happens to them next. But you don't get that. The majority of the book focuses on a different crime/criminal (I won't spoil any of that here), and Hodges doesn't really come into the book until over half way through.
Don't get me wrong, the way the crime pans out and how everything spirals out of control is wonderfully done, but I do wish it either could have been wrapped up a lot quicker, or the book had been longer. As I say, when I come to re-read this, knowing the structure of the book, I probably won't feel as impatient with it. 4/5
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Great review
. It's nice you really liked this book. I have it on my TBR. Can you tell me if it ends on a cliffhanger?Not really. Most of his books that I've read don't really have "proper" endings. The story finishes and while most of the threads do come together, you are left with many questions. This book is no different, but I didn't feel that I'd come to the end of a book in a series. It wasn't until after I'd finished it that I found out that it's actually a trilogy, and I was quite surprised.
If I was to speculate, I'd say that this book was written to be a stand alone book, but he later decided to write about these characters more.
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Hi Fuji,
I can recommend Das Boot by Lothar Gunther Buchheim. While it's a fictional story, it is drawn from the author's actual experiences on a U-boat during WW2.
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Blue Remembered Earth - Alistar Reynolds
One hundred and fifty years from now, in a world where Africa is the dominant technological and economic power, and where crime, war, disease and poverty have been banished to history, Geoffrey Akinya wants only one thing: to be left in peace, so that he can continue his studies into the elephants of the Amboseli basin. But Geoffrey's family, the vast Akinya business empire, has other plans. After the death of Eunice, Geoffrey's grandmother, erstwhile space explorer and entrepreneur, something awkward has come to light on the Moon, and Geoffrey is tasked - well, blackmailed, really - to go up there and make sure the family's name stays suitably unblemished. But little does Geoffrey realise - or anyone else in the family, for that matter - what he's about to unravel.
Eunice's ashes have already have been scattered in sight of Kilimanjaro. But the secrets she died with are about to come back out into the open, and they could change everything.
Or shatter this near-utopia into shards..My thoughts
I loved this book. It's a great SF story, with plenty of believable science, taking in pretty much the whole solar system, but also strangely rooted in Africa. Sometimes I struggle with hard sci-fi like this. They can concentrate too much on the science part and not enough on the fiction for my liking. This got the balance just right in my opinion. The story is more interested in the family of Eunice than anything else, which for me makes the book warm. I also enjoyed how the sci-fi parts weren't immediately explained; you're left to judge for yourself. There are maybe a couple of plot-holes that made me think ," well, why didn't they just...", but they were minor. In all, every time I picked up this book, I didn't want to put it down, and couldn't wait till the next time I could read the next bit.
Having read some others of his books, I wasn't expecting a neat ending, and it isn't , but I only just found out that this is part of a trilogy (not even sure at this point if it's finished!) I must get these! 5/5
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It sounds like one of those books you'll either love or hate; no middle ground. It'll go on my TBR list nevertheless.
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Hmm. Now I know I've read Cold Comfort Farm, but I'm jiggered if I can remember anything about it! Your review makes me want read it again anyway.
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While I wouldn't do a group read - I'm in the middle of a rather long Sci-fi novel that's going to have my attention for a while, I will say that this is a book I read last year I think. It's not heavy going, and is I recall, quite a short book. The subject matter does of course make this, at times, a quite difficult book to read, but well worth it. I hope you enjoy reading it.
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That's very interesting. I was speaking to my brother at the weekend, and it turns out he's been diagnosed with the start of a cataract in one of his eyes, which the optician said has been caused by too much time in front of a monitor. Do you know if this setting also takes away some of that risk?
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The Travellers by Chris Pavone.
It’s 3:00am. Do you know where your husband is?
Meet Will Rhodes: travel writer, recently married, barely solvent, his idealism rapidly giving way to disillusionment and the worry that he’s living the wrong life. Then one night, on assignment for the award-winning Travelers magazine in the wine region of Argentina, a beautiful woman makes him an offer he can’t refuse. Soon Will’s bad choices—and dark secrets—take him across Europe, from a chateau in Bordeaux to a midnight raid on a Paris mansion, from a dive bar in Dublin to a mega-yacht in the Mediterranean and an isolated cabin perched on the rugged cliffs of Iceland. As he’s drawn further into a tangled web of international intrigue, it becomes clear that nothing about Will Rhodes was ever ordinary, that the network of deception ensnaring him is part of an immense and deadly conspiracy with terrifying global implications—and that the people closest to him may pose the greatest threat of all.My Thoughts.
I think this book was a real opportunity missed in my opinion. A fairly good idea for a book ruined by a protagonist I disliked from the start and other characters I just didn't care about. It was only through dogged determination that I bothered to finish it. The surprises come as no surprise at all, and I'd pretty much worked out what was going on early on. I believe there is an "award" for books with badly written sex scenes? Oh boy, this could could win that! The book does pic up slightly by the second half, but frankly, by then I'd given up.
Perversely, I do think this book would make a good film: as I say it's a good idea for a plot. With a more likable protagonist, I could see this being a competent, if undemanding thriller.
2/5
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...at his desk, he saw his mobile phone. It Dawned on him that he could photograph car registrations and people coming in and out of Danglebean & Fly's whilst still being able to kiss the delightful Trixie. Now, he was thinking like a spy! And what's more, though Bertie, I;ll still have one hand free to...
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Oh dear - I loved "Curious" but wasn't impressed with "A Spot of Bother". I was hoping that was just a case of second book blues, but it doesn't sound like it.
Ian's reading log 2016
in Past Book Logs
Posted
Agent 6 by Tom Rob Smith
How far would you go to solve a crime against your family?
It is 1965. Leo Demidov, a former secret police agent, is forbidden to travel with his wife and daughters from Moscow to New York. They are part of a "Peace Tour," meant to foster closer relations between the two Cold War enemies. On the tour, Leo's family is caught up in a conspiracy and betrayal that ends in tragedy. In the horrible aftermath, Leo demands one thing: that he be allowed to investigate and find the attacker that struck at the heart of his family on foreign soil. From the highest levels of the Soviet government, he is told No, that is impossible. Leo is haunted by the question: what happened in New York?
In a surprising, epic story that spans decades and continents—from 1950s Moscow to 1960s America to the Soviet war in Afghanistan in the 1980s—Leo's long pursuit of justice will force him to confront everything he ever thought he knew about his country, his family, and himself. (taken from Goodreads)
My Thoughts
I have to admit, I was left a little disappointed by this book. The first book in the series is outstanding; probably one of the best books I've read this year. The second, The Secret Speech, while not as good, certainly is a page-turner, so I was looking forward to this final book. I found that the storyline meanders in the first half of the book. Don't get me wrong, it is still a very good thriller, but the focus is on characters I wasn't quite so interested in. I wanted it to be about Leo and Raisa.
For me, this book would have worked better if it had been a stand-alone book with different protagonists rather than the end of a series like this. 3/5